Google is shaking up the travel world again. I caught this article on Tnooz, just before heading down to the CASMA conference sessions. That’s on hold until can get my mind wrapped around this new tool.

Called Social Search, Google taps into your social networks (but only with your permission) to find out what your friends think about whatever search term you’ve entered. It works with any topic, not just travel. But for now, think of it as TripAdvisor meets LinkedIn.

So how does this relate to travel procurement? Well, your employees can now quickly find out what their colleagues think of that new hotel you just put into the preferred program, or how to enroll in a new travel card program, or how to find the Continental lounge at Heathrow airport…lots of ways to very quickly share context-relevant stuff with people who trust each other.

Here’s the video from Google that demos Social Search:

So what do you think about this latest innovative twist on travel? You can check out Google’s other new travel tool here.